Yes, it's a lie alright. It's not just thousands of American soldiers who are dying - its millions, maybe even billions if I miss my meds for a day. And those bombs aren't just uranium tipped, no sir, they are 100% uranium through and through. The USA is secretly nuking the entire middle east every day. But do you ever hear the mainstream media report it??? It just goes to show how powerful the US-Zionist conspiracy is.

YOu'd think the odious Pilger would be back in London organising BBC Guardian and Independant demos instead of polluting our own backyard with his lies and pilgerisms.
Are the invitations by SBS and the ABC irresistable?
Is he touting for more film business from these publically funded organisations ? have the BBC stopped the funding for obvious reasons ?
After the dismal 500,000 dollar David Hicks apoloy film, they must surely be looking for new "Documentary" film makers to distibute their Views.

I found this quote on Yahoo news, needless to say hidden at the very bottom of the page -

Many of the demonstrations were accompanied by smaller gatherings of Bush supporters. Iraqi-American Kaise Urfali, 46, was among 10 people gathered at the Atlanta rally to oppose the protesters.

"These people have no clue, they have no idea about the meaning of terrorism and the meaning of freedom," said Urfali, who said his family has lived in exile from Iraq since 1958. "These protesters talk in the name of Iraq and none of them are from Iraq, none of them lived in the terror."

Sad that there was only 10 of them. Probably because pro-war people have more important things to do with their time.

William, you are obviously enjoying yours. Depleted uranium is used in penetration weapons because of its density, and it is technically radioactive because it emits enough alpha particles to detect in a shielded laboratory, but there is no credible evidence that it is a greater danger to those who work with it than any other metal.

DU tipped artillery shells are used by the US forces in some anti-armour/anti-tank weapons. That is well-known, as is the fact that DU poses no significant radiological hazard. If it's low level of radioactivity could possibly be harmful, variations in natural background radiation from place to place would pose even more of a risk.

It is possible that the US also uses DU in highly specialised "bunker-busting" bombs. I am not aware of any but it is a possible use.

However, Pilger is claiming that there were "uranium-tipped bombs dropped on Iraqi cities" and implying that this was a routine practice. That is an outright lie. He is also claiming that "thousands" of American soldiers are sick and dying as a result. That is another outright lie.

"Natural uranium is a slightly/ radioactive metal that is present in most rocks and soils as well as in many rivers and sea water./ Natural uranium consists primarily of a mixture of two isotopes (forms) of uranium, Uranium-235 (U235) and Uranium-238 (U238), in the proportion of about 0.7 and 99.3 percent, respectively. Nuclear reactors require U235 to produce energy, therefore, the natural uranium has to be enriched to obtain the isotope U235 by removing a large part of the U238. Uranium-238 becomes DU, which is 0.7 times as radioactive as natural uranium./

If natural uranium can be found in most rocks and soils as well as many rivers and seawaters, and depleted uranium is only 0.7 times more radioactive than natural uranium, what are the statistical chances its going to make me or anyone else severly ill with radiation poisining?

For what it's worth, I am a calibrations technitian, AT3, in the United States Navy. Depleted uranium is less radioactive than the hot pocket you microwaved a while ago-- and about as dangerous, unless it's shot at you.

Our bunker busters were concrete. Cheaper, and the US isn't making weapons with DU anymore. (It's for the same reason that some fishing shops don't sell lead weights any more-- DU _is_ a heavy metal)

I am totally against uranium tipped bongs. Who knows what heating of uranium will do combined with substances placed into said bong. The health risk alone are worth considering until we conviene a panel to study the.... what?... what?...bombs?....uranium tipped bombs?.....ohh.

On today's Einstein Factor, a person taking as his speciality The Simpsons (and did fairly well) was asked (to the best of my recollection) "When Groundskeeper Willie acted as substitute teacher for French, he said 'Bounjour, Cheese-eating' what?", and the person was unable to complete the phrase.

Anyway, one fun fact about radiation, is that just living on Earth you soak up a fair amount of it. Not a problem as we tend to die when we hit 100, but things like vampires and such would come down with radiation poisoning after 200-300 years...

Andjam, to answer your question: you are not alone. I think there is a genuine effort on the part of the anti-US left/pro islamofascist right to create a self-fulfilling prophecy in Iraq. I imagine the thrill that rises through their bodies each and every time they hear of a bomb going off. For them Bush and the US is the ultimate evil and therefore MUST fail or be perceived to have failed in Iraq. Shame on them.

DU : you know it's used as ballast in certain cargo aeroplanes ? Remember when that plane wnet down in the Netherlands a few years ago and we got Greenpeace screaming about planes carrying " highly radioactive uranium " ? Is also sometimes used in helicopter rotor blades, as weights on the end. There's even a company in the US that makes golf club heads from it.
A buddy who's a tanker in the Califionia NG tells me that they are advised not to inhale the dust from a round : because U is indeed a toxic heavy metal, but this has nothing to do with the radioactivity, which as many have noted DU has little of. It is also true that some of the claimed symptoms of Gulf War Syndrome ( leaving aside whether such syndrome exists or not ) are consitent with heavy metals poisoning : notably the renal failue. And there are 98 other possible causes of such renal failure as well.
I think it was Auberon Waugh, many years ago who introduced the verb to " pilger " and this looks like a classic definition of the verb.
DU was used in tank busting rounds, inhalation of the dust from such could be a health concern, it would be nothing to do with radiation, those who were around to inhale the dust would probably already be dead from the impact and anyway, there is no evidence whatsoever of mass heavy metal poisoning.
As has been noted in the Spectator a few months ago, the series of diseases which have been noted in Iraqis following GWI, some of which have similar symptoms to heavy metal poisoning, are also consistent with exposure to chemical weapons . And we do know that Saddam used such on Iraqis in the years leading up to GWI.
So, no evidence that DU has harmed anyone other than those it was shot at, no scientific possibility of DU causing radiation related injuries, and clear evidence of chemical weapons use which we know could cause similar diseases.
Yup, " to pilger " is a useful addition to hte language.

When the lefties in Fremantle began screaming about Depleated Uranium a couple of years ago I asked some leading scientists about it.

Same answers as posted here: It can be chemically toxic but not radiologically toxic, and to be effected by the chemical toxin you'd need fragments of it in your body so you'd probably be dead anyway.

The Depleted Uranium scare is just another lefty lie.

Incidentally, we had Pilger at the University of Western Australia Summer School as a guest speaker this year, courtesy of the Australian tax-payer. Another guest at our literature festival was well known-literary figure Gerry Adams.

And what a flopperoo the pro-terrorist - sorry, I mean anti-war - demonstrations were!

Pilger is a liar and a traitor, who gives aid and comfort to the enemy. Even the Left can barely stomach his smarminess. Answer: package up Pilger like Hann(i)bal Lecter, and fly him to Gitmo. Swap him for Hicks, and everyone's happy.

A _typical_ Radio Japan interview concerning the hopeless hopeless situation in Iraq wrought by the dastardly USA. Radio Japan (13 min.) . Dying children are involved, particularly because of Depleted Uranium, which makes Japanese very nervous. The Japanese government is supporting the US, an odd reversal, but maybe not so unusual. The media sell hooks into vast soap opera dramas. This is a fine episode. As the World Turns.

Yes EP, and that's the point William is (deliberately?) obscuring by insisting the US uses DU in weapons, which is true, when Pilger refers to the "bombs" the US has "dropped on Iraqi cities" -- plainly a reference to something dropped from planes, not fired from tanks.

I and many others took to the streets yesterday in Georgetown. We marched along, only stopping to look at the cute Easter plates in Pottery Barn, then we marched, stopping again to get makeovers from the most delightful young earring-wearing men at MAC, then marching again only to stop and pet the tiny puppies outside LUSH. There were hundreds of us, maybe thousands, all out on the streets, um, protesting something or other by spending money and getting the most darling haircuts at Christianne's and new jeans and sweet little t-shirts from the Gap...

I like the comment that another blogger made: that the easiest way to be killed by DU is to catch it in your chest at 3000 feet per second.
William, you raging genius, there IS NO SUCH THING as a "uranium-tipped bomb". We use DU penetrators in several varieties of CANNON PROJECTILES, but the only BOMBS we have with any kind of uranium are in the strategic inventory... and it isn't the same kind of uranium. DU is indeed nasty stuff: if you breathe the vapor or the dust you can get lung cancer. So how is this different from, say, every OTHER metal much above the midpoint of the Periodic Table? In fact, tungsten - touted as a "green" substitute for DU- is actually MORE TOXIC than DU is (and less effective as a projectile). But hey, what do I know, William? All I've done is study military tech and history for close to twenty years... and you are an elite science expert who has mastered the art of looking up unsupported facts on the internet.

I don't get the Bilge-Pillager's bonnet-bee here. He wants American soldiers in Iraq killed, right? Whether it's by brave Iraqi/ Islamicist maquis or by their own Military-Industrial COmplex should be a secondary issue for him, no?

Sheesh. The technically incompetent and ignorant once again try to scare normally eductated people. Or perhaps I shouldn't say "normal" -- science education is going downhill.

William, you are dead wrong. A lot of folks have already replied to your ignorant replies. All that you are doing here is demonstrating how liberal pinheads go into brain lock and stop processing reality whenever they hear the words "radiation", "uranium", "nuclear", etc.

Two suggestions for you and your friends. First, stop being terrified of things that you don't understand. Second, learn about the things that you don't understand -- you will at least realize what the problem might actually be. As a rule of thumb, don't listen to people who use buzz words to influence you emotionally; they don't know what they are talking about, and are probably manipulating you.

Conversely, if someone takes the time to explain matters to you with a "this is how it works" approach, you are probably dealing with someone who does understand what they are saying. But check their references.